The Hounds Knew The Danger Of The Place; But The Buck, Accustomed To These Haunts From His Birth, Suddenly Leapt Across The Boiling Rapids, And Springing From Rock To Rock Along The Verge Of The Cataract, He Gained The Opposite Side.

Here he had mistaken his landing-place, as a shelving rock, upon which he had alighted, was so steep that he could not retain his footing, and he gradually slid down toward the river.

At this moment, to my horror, both "Bran" and Lucifer" dashed across the torrent, and bounding from rock to rock, they sprung at the already tottering elk, and in another moment both he and they rolled over in a confused mass into the boiling torrent. One more instant and they reappeared, the buck gallantly stemming the current, which his great length of limb and weight enabled him to do; the dogs, overwhelmed in the foam of the rapids, were swept down toward the fall, in spite of their frantic exertions to gain the bank.

They were not fifteen feet from the edge of the fall, and I saw them spun round and round in the whirlpools being hurried toward certain destruction. The poor dogs seemed aware of the danger, and made the most extraordinary efforts to avoid their fate. They were my two favorites of the pack, and I screamed out words of encouragement to them, although the voice of a cannon could not have been heard among the roar of waters. They had nearly gained the bank oil the very ver-e of the fall, when a few tufts of lemon grass concealed them from my view. I thought they were over, and I could not restrain a cry of despair at their horrible fate. I felt sick with the idea. But the next moment I was shouting hurrah! they are all right, thank goodness, they were saved. I saw them struggling up the steep bank, through the same lemon grass, which had for a moment obscured their fate. They were thoroughly exhausted and half drowned.

In the mean time, the elk had manfully breasted the rapids, carefully choosing the shallow places; and the whole pack, being mad with excitement, had plunged into the waters regardless of the danger. I thought every hound would have been lost. For an instant they looked like a flock of ducks, but a few moments afterward they were scattered in the boiling eddies, hurrying with fatal speed toward the dreadful cataract. Poor "Phrenzy!" round she spun in the giddy vortex; nearer and nearer she approached the verge - her struggles were unavailing - over she went, and was of course never heard of afterward.

This was a terrible style of hunting; rather too much so to be pleasant. I clambered down to the edge of the river just in time to see the elk climbing, as nimbly as a cat up the precipitous bank on the opposite side, threading his way at a slow walk under the overhanging rocks, and scrambling up the steep mountain with a long string of hounds at his heels in single file.

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